As the number of participants in the children’s story time program has dwindled over the years, Weare Public Library director Christine Hague has decided to try an experiment – moving away from children’s programming to more family programming.

According to Hague, for many years, story time for 4- and 5-yearolds has been offered on Thursday mornings. However, the library is now lucky to see three or four children during a session.

“One of the reasons we’re looking at this is because we’re seeing a lot of parents out of town during the day, and our story time coincides with kindergarten,” said Hague. “We’re hoping an evening program will appeal to the public.”

The library will offer its first family program on Friday, Feb. 13, at 7 p.m. This will be a family story time, and tots are encouraged to attend in their pajamas.

There will also be games on the main floor for teens, sponsored by the Teen Advisory Board.

The second family program will be a Family Day on Thursday, Feb. 26, from 10:30 a.m. to 3 p.m., where crafts and games will be offered on a drop-in basis.

“Both of these are experiments,” said Hague. “We want to see what the public’s response will be.” Currently, the 4- to 5-year-old story time is being offered every other Thursday, and there will be no program on Feb. 19.

“We’re so short-staffed at this library,” said Hague. “This is as much programming as we can do at this time.

“(In 2006) we had a study done by a professional library consultant,” said Hague. “We’re not only short-staffed, we’re also 3,000 square feet short of space and collection.”

The last expansion project was completed in 1992, with the expansion of the children’s room. The main floor was expanded in 1991. According to Hague, at this time, the architect determined this expansion would be good for 20 years.

“We had a lot more population growth in Southern New Hampshire than what they originally used for their projections,” said Hague.

On this year’s town warrant, the library has requested extra money in its budget for part-time, entry-level staffers, for a total of 17 hours of work each week.

A breakdown of work includes two hours of additional cleaning, six additional hours in the children’s room and nine additional hours on the main floor.

The library will continue to offer a Tiny Tots program for children 18 months to 3 years on Tuesdays. Registration is required, and the next session begins in March. For more information, call the library at 529-2044.